To Lady Clémentine Waring.
Hôtel des Arcades,
Dunkerque,
18 November, 1914.
Dearest Clemmie,
Forgive the delay in writing again. I was too sick about it all at first, then I was sent for to go to Boulogne to see my nephew, who is badly wounded. I can't explain the present situation to you because it would only be censored, but I hope to write about it later.
I shall manage the soup-kitchens soon, I hope, but next week will decide that and many things. The objection to the pattern is that those vans would overturn going round corners when hitched on behind ambulances. Some wealthy people are giving a regular motor kitchen to run about to various "dressing"-stations—this will be most useful, but it doesn't do away with the need of something to eat during those interminable waits at the railway-stations.
CHANGES IN THE SITUATION
To-morrow I begin my own little soup-kitchen at Furnes. I have a room but no van, and this is most unsatisfactory, as any day the room (so near the station) may be commandeered. A van would make me quite independent, but I must feel my way. The situation changes very often, as you will of course see, and when one is quite close to the Front one has to be always changing with it.
I want helpers and I want vans, but rules are becoming stricter than ever. Even Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, whose good work everyone knows, has waited for a permit for a week at Boulogne, and has now gone home. When all the useful women have been expelled there will follow the usual tale of soldiers' suffering and privations: when women are about they don't let them suffer.